Fantastical Flowers

It's always fun to see the new Bee Sewcial @beesewcial prompt one of my beemates sets forth, and for September, Karen @capitolaquilter gave us the theme of Fantastical Flowers. About the word 'fantastical,' Karen said, “It implies a creation of an unrestrained imagination, often resulting in something marvelous or whimsical” and “something unrealistic, bizarre, or created by a powerful imagination, like something out of a dream or fantasy story” and “out of the ordinary and unexpected; slightly odd or even a bit weird.”

Hopefully I reached that goal with my blocks, even though they were both inspired by real-life things. First was a flower reminiscent of an Echinachea, which is a favorite of mine. Per instructions, the background was composed of multiple light blues, the flower of multi-colors (though not green, yellow, or white/off-white), and a green stem found its way to an edge of the block. This block measures 16" x 17".

In her prompt, Karen also allowed for an option: "If anyone is inclined to make one of their blocks a fantastical pollinator (my personal favorites in my backyard are hummingbird and dragonflies) in place of one of their flowers, that would be awesome."

 

Well when I read that, I knew I'd be trying my hand at an improv hummingbird. My husband and I really enjoy watching our hummingbirds from the kitchen window, and love seeing them any time, any place. I actually 'drew' a hummingbird-like shape on my fabric with my hera marker, after piecing some colors together. Obviously it's still all very improvisational and off-scale a bit, but I think at least you can tell what it's supposed to be. The hummingbird block measures 12" x 12".

So that was a very satisfying prompt to respond too. I did realize that my stash is pretty low on light blues, so that needs to be remedied, but it worked out. All the fabrics for the flower itself and the hummingbird came from the scrap basket, and it was fun to find pieces that seemed (to me) to fit the fantastical theme.